'Time to stop the fight' | 32 independent studies slam the widespread use of hydrogen for heating
Expanded study of studies concludes that H2 heating would be far too expensive and inefficient to compete with heat pumps
Hydrogen in space and hot water heating will be more expensive and less efficient than other clean alternatives in almost all circumstances, according to a review of 32 independent studies into the subject, leading to calls for proponents to “stop the fight” for hydrogen heating.
Hydrogen: hype, hope and the hard truths around its role in the energy transition
The cost of using 100% green hydrogen powered by newbuild offshore wind in a UK home would push prices up by 94.7% in 2030 against fossil gas, before declining to a premium of 66.3%, Cornwall Insight calculated.
Five fold
Not one of the 32 independent studies found that hydrogen was a cost-effective decarbonisation solution for heating compared to heat pumps, solar thermal or district heating — either in terms of energy system costs or consumer costs.
Echoing the earlier analysis, Rosenow, who heads up sustainability think-tank the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), reiterated that the relative inefficiencies of electrolysis and the average boiler and the relative efficiency of heat pumps results in a hydrogen boiler requiring five times the energy resources of an air-source heat pump.
Any cost reductions achieved by green hydrogen producers on account of cheaper renewable electricity will be more than matched by alternatives that are directly electrified, the report noted.
“Hydrogen for heating necessitates more energy supply infrastructure, uses more resources and requires more land,” the peer-reviewed report noted, adding: “Hydrogen use for domestic heating is less economic, less efficient, more resource intensive, and associated with larger environmental impacts.”
However, the review did acknowledge some evidence supporting the use of hydrogen heating in certain specific circumstances. In areas where the cost of grid upgrades are particularly high, for example, a so-called “hybrid hydrogen heat pump” could save power at peak times by burning hydrogen for heat.
“Unanimous”
“No serious analysis has hydrogen playing more than a marginal role in the future of space heating,” he said. “We need to get Europe's heating systems off natural gas, and we need to do it without further delay. It's time to stop the fight: the judges are unanimous and the winners are district heating, heat pumps and electrification.”
Rosenow called for governments to consider the evidence before committing public funds to hydrogen heating, and focus instead on decarbonising the existing hydrogen industry.
“Using hydrogen for heating may sound attractive at first glance,” he said. “However, all of the independent research on this topic comes to the same conclusion: heating with hydrogen is a lot less efficient and more expensive than alternatives such as heat pumps, district heating and solar thermal.”
He added: “Rather than hoping for hydrogen to eventually be able to replace fossil gas used for heating our buildings we should focus on speeding up the roll-out of energy efficiency and heat pumps, technologies consistently identified as critical for reducing carbon emissions from buildings.”
Deaf ears
All of this appears to be falling on deaf ears in the UK, which is throwing its weight behind hydrogen heating and blue hydrogen (made with fossil gas and carbon capture and storage) — at least partly due to the lobbying efforts of local gas distributors such as Cadent and SGN.
And newly minted energy secretary and fossil-fuel enthusiast Jacob Rees-Mogg is advocating for curtailed wind and solar power to be used to make hydrogen for heating.
“I think hydrogen is ultimately the silver bullet,” he told Parliament last week. “We create it from renewable sources, because we have the wind power when people are not drawing on the electricity system; we use it as an effective battery and it can then, with some adjustments, be piped through to people’s houses to heat them during the winter.”
There are 120 paid hydrogen lobbyists operating in the UK parliament at present, according to the MCS Charitable Foundation, which commissioned the heating report from Cornwall Insight.